“The Culture of Fear”: America’s Relationship with the Media

Excerpts from the Paper

The beginning:

An Analysis of the Book, “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things”
Introduction and Overview
Barry Glassner’s book “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Fear the Wrong Things” is written from the point of view of a sociologist who is examining the state of American’s relationship with the media. Although the book has been updated for the post 9/11 world, which has just made everyone’s fear worse, Glassner says that “the culture of fear predates 9/11 by at least a generation (xiii). He also makes the point that since the book was originally published in 1999, things have gotten worse. In fact, Glassner makes the point early on in the introduction to the updated edition that since the time of original publication,...

The end:

..... has a lot of statistical information to support his statements, but he also seems to be taking too much of a political stance on how to solve social problems. This is problematic because the book is not about politics. It is about social fears that are created by the media and why this fear exists. This is the reason I do not agree with Glassner’s overall argument of how to fix the culture of fear and make people less fearful. This is unfortunate, because I do agree with him about the culture of fear being a problem in general, and, as stated, I believe he should have stopped at the media influence with his argument.
Works Cited
Glassner, Barry. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things. 2010. New York: Basic Books.